SFeraKon is traditionally a favorite destination for children on Saturday. On Saturday evening, before the SFERA Award Ceremony for adults, we award the winners of SFERA’s art and literary competitions for children and young people. Every year more than 1,000 children apply for the competition. In addition to the SFERICE Award Ceremony for Kids and gifts from sponsors, the winners of the art competition have their first exhibition on SFeraKon, while the works of the literary categories winners are published in the SFERA’s fanzine Parsek. You can check out the list of this year’s winners here.

The Croatian Guest of Honor, Darko Macan, comic writer and artist, as well as an illustrator of books for children is also known as the author of the comic book , published in Croatian children’s magazine Modra Lasta. Macan has prepared a special Comic Book Workshop for Kids on Sunday, April 29th, from 13:15 to 14:30.

In addition to the art workshops the music workshops for children 0-5 years Music Together ® will be also held on Saturday (18:15 to 19:30). Music Together is an internationally recognized music program for children 0-8 years. The workshop will be held by Croatian center for this type of early music education .

Playing games is an important part of any Science Fiction Convention, and for the first time it will be possible for children to learn and play board games for kids on SFeraKon/Kontakt. The Association “Igranje” will have a table with games suitable for beginner and younger age during the weekend. (All descriptions and rules of these games can be found on the website igranje.org).

The Romanian SF&F society SRSFFhad started a very ambitious and praiseworthy intercultural project on the European level – the exchange of texts, interviews, information and ideas between various European SF communities. The first result of this project is the promotion of the Croatian Science Fiction through the trilingual anthology Bella Proxima (in Romanian, Croatian and English), which will be presented on Kontakt. The presenters will be Romanian translators, editors and Croatian authors, presented in the book.

You can find more information about the trilingual anthology Bella Proximahere.

However the SRSFF society has even more to offer; we invite you to attend two more Romanian panels:

European Intercultural Exchanges about their next intercultural project with the Hungarian SF community and their future plans.

European Hard SF as a sub-genre within the European science fiction since Jules Verne.

As a large and important part of SF culture, comics will be presented through lectures and panel discussions by eminent writers, critics and artists. First and foremost we want to point out that our Guest of Honor, Darko Macan, is a prominent Croatian comic writer and artist, as well as an illustrator of books for children. Beside his Q&A presentation and participation in panels on comics, he has prepared a special Comic Book Workshop for Kids and the Cartoon History of Croatian SF and Fandom.

Pavle Zelić, SF and comic writer and critic, comes from our neighboring country, Serbia, will moderate two panels in English: Fantastic Art – it’s Fantastic! and Graphic Novels in the SE Europe. So, if you would like to know something more about SF comics in the former Yugoslavia, this is a very good opportunity.

Nikola Tesla was a genius well ahead of his time. Tesla Long Distance High-Power and High-EfficiencyWireless Energy Transmission is still a mystery to our technology. To better understand Tesla’s claims that power can be transmitted to any distance on Earth with insignificant losses and to see what challenges does this pose to the current technology, two simple prototypes of Tesla Magnifier have been built. All data was ready available on internet: original Tesla’s patents and articles from 1891-1919 related to wireless energy transmission. Information have led to the optimal calculation of geometry for a Tesla Magnifier, a kind of resonant antenna used to transmit and/or receiver power. Some unexpected electrical conditions have been observed which were accurately reproduced using computer models in SPICE (electronic circuit simulation) and NEC2 (antenna simulation and electromagnetic field visualization). The simulation has revealed geometry of the field around the Tesla Magnifier and it differs from the field around an ordinary radio antenna.

An experiment will be performed here at Kontakt in which we will use two small Tesla Magnifiers made of household materials to light up fluorescent tubes at a distance of a few meters.

Based on computer simulations and an earlier smaller experiment, a larger experiment was already undertaken in summer of 2011, with two Tesla Magnifiers three meters high that lighted up fluorescent tubes in a receiver 40 meters away.

Davor Jandrijević (BScEE) does independent research of exotic technologies in his free time. After several of his creations didn’t work, he wanted to try out something that’s bound to work. He decided to build a prototype of a Tesla Magnifier and repeat Tesla’s experiment of wireless energy transfer.

On SFeraKon 2011 Dave Lally (the president of the European Science Fiction Society)visited the Observatory in Zagreb and was so thrilled that he wanted to share his enthusiasm with all of us. At his suggestion and in cooperation with the Zagreb Observatory we have organized a group trip to the Observatory after the convention, on Monday, April, 30. at a promotional price for only HRK 20 ( €2,7/£ 2,2)!

The trip includes:

Lecture in English about the history and scientific work at the Observatory (30 min.).

The presentation of the Hybrid Cosmic Ray Particle Detector (put in operation in 2008) – as a part of the SEVAN Network (United Nations Basic Space Science projects & International Space Weather Initiative).

Sun Poster (made in collaboration with the Observatory Kanzelhöhe, in Graz, Austria). The poster will be available in English, Croatian or German. If the Stars are right you could also peek at the Sun through the telescope.

The meeting point with Dave Lally will be in front of the Hotel International at 10:45 am. The tour and the program in the Observatory begins at 11:30.

The max. number of visitors: 45. You can apply at the convention.

Survivors of four days of lectures, panel discussions, boardgames, workshops & partying at the Kontakt who show up on Monday at 10:45 am in front of the Hotel International are indeed real fans!
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There is going to be some drawing at Kontakt, and by that we don’t mean only at children’s workshops. On Friday, April 27. and Saturday, 28. we have a very special guest, Milan Lekić – Lex, a caricature artist, specialized in quick-draw caricatures at major conferences. Lex has been a member of the Croatian Society of Caricature Artists since 1997 with many years of experience at numerous conferences, symposia and conventiones.

Since science fiction conventions in Croatia are organized by volunteers only, Lex has decided to contribute in the same manner: he will draw all interested visitors one hour for free. The caricatures will be made ​​in A3 format (200 grams paper), with black marker (5 mm). During one hour of drawing on Friday and respectively on Saturday 10-12 lucky (or fastest?) visitors will receive a free caricature portrait as a gift. If you want your portrait to be science fiction-ish (Klingon forehead, elvish ears, mad scientist or one-eyed Leela “look”), take a photo as a crib note for Lex.

Free caricatures drawing will be held in the hall of the main Kontakt venue on Friday around 8:30 pm and Saturday 9:30 to 10:30 pm.

We are sorry not to have any participants from Portugal this year, but it doesn’ t mean that we wont have a chance to find out what is fantastically going on in Portugal.

Roberto Mendes, fan creator and editor of two SF Portuguese magazines Dagon and Conto Fantástico, creator of the website Correio do Fantastico (The Fantasy Mail) and one of the editors of the SF fanzine Fénix presented the Portuguese Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction Short Stories Anthology called Vollüspa on the Croatian SF portal . This anthology, inspired by Nordic legends and Norse mythology, has a goals of revitalizing the Portuguese speculative fiction scene, as well as giving all SF authors from Portugal a chance to express themselves. Vollüspa offers a journey into the fantastic, the reader can experience the history of the last vampire, watch the fall of Rome, hear the sounds of a song that touches the souls in a very special way, be pushed to the limit by the mythical figure of death, travel to the sky discovering its secrets or celebrate artificial Christmas.

After the anthology was published, readers and authors wrote short stories (max. 300 words) in which Vollüspa appeared as a character or a center figure in the plot. You can read 3 of those short stories translated into English on the NOSF portal. As the creator and editor of Vollüspa Roberto told us he has being preparing the second volume of Vollüspa, that will feature other Portuguese speaking nations such as Brazil.

In addition to presenting the current SF scene in Portugal on the NOSF portal, Roberto sent us a package with an edition of Vollüspa and the latest issue of Fénix so that all the Kontakt attendees can flip through publications or maybe read a story or two. The anthology and the fanzine will be available to all interested visitors at the Kontakt Registration desk.

Portugal is perhaps far away from Croatia, but the SF contact has been established!